Harringay Warehouse District, 1934

Comment by patrick byrne on August 7, 2021 at 10:31

Great photo Hugh.

I grew up in Hermitage Road in the 1950s and the local children used the hilly area at the top of the photograph as an adventure playground. The area surrounded the car park for Harringay Stadium (Greyhound racing, Speedway, Stock Car Racing etc)  and by 1950s it was overgrown with grass and scrub and was a great place to play!

A scruffy little stream flowed diagonally across this photo between the Challen factory and the raised bank and quite a few children ended up getting wet in there after tumbling down the hillside.  It was probably heavily polluted but I do not recall any medical consequences from contact with the water.

Comment by Hugh on August 7, 2021 at 10:49

I imagine that stream was Hermitage Brook. 

Comment by StephenBln on August 7, 2021 at 18:33

It's not even Harringay.  The Arena site looks like a slag heap. What caused it?

Comment by patrick byrne on August 7, 2021 at 19:07

Yes, the stream was Hermitage Brook.

The raised ground probably was a slag heap of waste from a power station or gas works as I recall the surface was very rough and like clinker. By the time I was playing there in 1950s it was well overgrown with grass and scrub so provided a perfect playground for the local children.

Comment by Hugh on August 7, 2021 at 19:33

Stephen, see my answer to your question about what formed Harringay's Stadium Slopes in my third comment on the previous page. 

Comment by StephenBln on August 8, 2021 at 4:27

Hugh, I do understand that for the purposes of gentrification, the area needs to get as much distance from Tottenham as possible. That's why this pretentious name has been conjured up. I far as I can recall, this area was always known as the back end of Tookah - Tewkesbury Road, second only to Lorenco Road in Tottenham.

All the old factories and companies you mention. Maynards, Courtney Pope, Kinlochs, all saw themselves and were definitely in Tottenham and not some fake Harringay extension. Ashfield, Oakdale & Beechfield were all part of Tottenham too and certainly not Harringay which was always 'was' north of Endymion Road.  All my school friends who lived there were from Tottenham. That is, until Google Maps decided to invent place names.

What would have happened if the 'residents' had suddenly decided to align themselves with Stamford Hill? Which would have been more logical as the School and Telephone exchange were both known as that. Would it now be the Stamford Hill Warehouse Area, with which I would be a lot happier?

Comment by StephenBln on August 8, 2021 at 4:49

Patrick. I also grew up in this area, as well as on St Ann's Rd and Warwick Gardens. I recall the grass and scrub, just as you say. Did you live in the Haringey (Tottenham) part of Hermitage or the Hackney (Stoke Newington) bit?  I can remember playing in the Hermitage brook outside the Oakdale pub, when it was opened up around 1963/64. It had been causing problems with flooding, especially during the thaw after the long cold winter of 1962/63.

Comment by Hugh on August 8, 2021 at 9:40

Stephen, you seem to have posted about this issue in multiple places. You've also added your objection in my short history of the manufacturing area. I've responded to it in detail there where I've provided historical evidence of the use of the Harringay name for the area from the 1930s through to the Fifties. It shows that nothing has been 'conjured up', as you claim. However, I've also explained my view that this name thing is rather more than a dichotomy.

Comment by StephenBln on August 8, 2021 at 12:14

I posted replies on both the relevant threads. Nothing more.

We've had this debate many times over. As you are well aware, I dislike the erasing of 'Tottenham' and replacing it with silly names like West Green, St Ann's and the Warehouse Whotsit. 

Langham Road was always in Tottenham, as were, and still are, all of St Ann's Road and West Green Road, regardless of the titles given to them by gentrifiers etc., 

Surely there's no need to delete the comments you may not agree with? 

Comment by Hugh on August 8, 2021 at 13:02

Yes, we have had this debate many times. Yet, you persist. So, I respond.

Nothing's been deleted. I saw two comments from you this morning, Stephen. I assume when you refer to having posted in another 'relevant thread', you mean the 'short history' one you also posted in this morning. Your comment is still there. Use the link in my previous comment, above, to find it along with my detailed response to both your comments.

No one is erasing Tottenham: I, along with many others, am using a name that's been widely used and applied for over a century to the same area to which I'm applying it.

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